So-called “Japan-style deflation” was not merely an economic failure but the result of a mindset shaped by Asahi Shimbun. This article argues that such thinking spread through Japan’s institutions, ultimately insulting the honor of Japanese men who lived through the century of war and gravely damaging the nation’s credibility.

2016-02-01

Today, countries all over the world refer to the prolonged deflation into which Japan had fallen until quite recently as “Japan-style deflation,” and they dread falling into it as if it were a venomous curse.
Why did Japan, a nation that has produced countless great figures throughout history, end up in such a state?

I realized that uncovering the answer to this question is something worthy of a Nobel Prize.
That is because it is a fact—indeed, the truth—that no one had noticed until now.

The reason I knew that deflation was created by Atsushi Yamada of the Asahi Shimbun’s economic desk—that is, by Asahi Shimbun itself—is because I spent my life as a businessman in the real estate industry.

As I continued writing in this way, I suddenly became aware of something.
All those involved in managing Japan’s economy had grown up reading Asahi Shimbun and had come to believe that Asahi Shimbun’s way of thinking—its ideology—was the correct way of thinking.

The criticism by Yoshiko Sakurai of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, introduced below, is something that most Japanese people had failed to notice until now, but I recognized it immediately.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which Sakurai criticizes so harshly, was suffering from the same disease.

They too had grown up reading Asahi Shimbun, and after entering public service, that influence must have become even stronger.
They had come to believe that the arguments of Asahi Shimbun and the so-called cultural figures who echoed it were correct.

As a result, not only did absurd failures beneath even kindergarten-level reasoning arise, as Sakurai points out, but the rampant spread of fabrications and lies was left unchecked, severely damaging the honor and credibility of Japan and its people.

How great an insult this has been to all Japanese men who reached adulthood during the century of war.
In particular, they dismissed as meaningless the deaths of countless ordinary men—no different from you or me—who died for their country, dragging them down and inflicting irreparable harm on their honor.
And because this was done entirely on the basis of sheer falsehoods, it is an outrage so absurd that nothing could be more infuriating.

Sakurai’s essay will be introduced in the following chapter.